While I was backpacking around the world I had the wonderful opportunity of watching a Loggerhead Turtle lay her eggs before crawling back to the water. It was a pretty amazing experience and one that I am very proud to have witnessed.

I saw this turtle at Mon Repos, near Bundaberg, in Australia. I visited there back in December 1999. It was a long night as I didn’t get back to my room till 05:30 the following morning but it was well worth it.

The monumental effort involved for the turtle to drag herself up the beach, dig a nest and lay the clutch of eggs almost seems to much to handle. That is only half the battle though as she still has to cover the nest back up with sand and then crawl all the way back to the ocean before swimming off back to her natural habitat.

As this item is on my bucket list I thought it might be nice to upload some of my photos. I hope one day to return and watch some turtles hatch and make their way to the sea for the first time so that is also on the list.

Turtle Photos

To keep track of the turtles laying eggs at the site the size of each turtle is recorded.
The effort of crawling up the beach, digging the nest and laying the eggs takes it’s toll on the turtle and she appears to be crying…
Here you can see into the nest as the turtle starts to lay her eggs.
In between bouts of laying eggs you got the chance to gently stroke the turtle.
The eggs are about the same size as a table tennis ball. In fact they look just like them…
After covering the nest with sand the turtle makes her way back down the beach.
To help with the conservation of turtles the eggs have to be moved further up the beach as the nest can sometimes get flooded at very high tides. So after all that effort the nest is immediately dug up again and the eggs removed.
I then had the chance to help relocate the eggs to the new nest site.

Image: Pete O’Shea